AES San Francisco 2006

elysia tours the United States

The AES in Paris was a great experience – was it possible that the San Francisco show from October 5th to 8th 2006 could even top that? And straight after the AES we also had a demo tour to some of the most important mastering studios in Los Angeles and New York coming. Good times ahead!

Kompressor-Vergnügen! Our slogan for the debut of the alpha compressor in the United States. And that said it all, as we had 12 days, 6 hotels, 4 flights and countless appointments on our schedule...

And here we go! The 121st AES would indeed be fun, because we shared a booth with our friends from Wave Distribution, Empirical Labs and Tonelux as well as Chandler Limited, Paul Reed Smith Guitars plus the ever-popular Gearslutz Lounge.

Finally the long-awaited reunion with the usual suspects took place! Here we see Greg from Wave Distribution - always busy straight in the middle of action. Need a hand? Ask Greg! We guess that at this very moment his arms were a little bit longer than before, because he had just towed the alpha compressor in a heavy road case through half of San Francisco.

And here comes the Duo Infernale again: Dave Derr from Empirical Labs and Paul Wolff from Tonelux. Please note the adequate outfits: Dave with dark sunglasses, Paul with a Bluetooth headset. In the foreground one of Dave's babies: the Lil FrEQ.

Here we see Ruben with John La Grou from Millennia and Kirt Shearer from Paradise Studios. John could barely hide his enthusiasm for the alpha compressor: "There is nothing like it. You guys are the heart of this show." A great compliment!

Gil Griffith, president of Wave Distribution, has an obvious reason to smile happily. Just in this very moment he has received the first and for the time being only emergency compressor by elysia, the new official contingency compressor in discrete class-A technology. Gil's first question: "How many of them can you build?" Obvious ;-)

The third day of the show had a very exciting surprise for us, as the alpha compressor received a PAR Excellence Award from Pro Audio Review magazine. Finally a friend for our Certified Hit award from Mix Magazine...

After the Gearslutz dinner at the Cha Am Thai restaurant there was another truly special treat waiting: Tony Espinoza from SF Soundworks had invited the GS members to join a party at his location. The ultimate highlight of this event was Warren Dent from Zen Pro Audio who amazed the audience with his ingenious piano interpretations of various Metallica classics.

And now for something completely different. We always enjoy spotting stupid signs all over the world, and this is certainly one that fits into the collection. If you feel like violating these rules, be sure to carry 1. a volleyball, 2. a watch, and 3. a compass.

We said goodbye to San Francisco enjoying gorgeous weather. Gil took a final snapshot of Ruben and Dominik posing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, and then the trip continued on Highway 1 to Los Angeles in order to meet our first demo appointments.

And yes, traveling with Wave Distribution and elysia means traveling in style! We rented this really HUGE Lincoln Navigator for some serious highway cruising, enjoyed its PA-like sound system and had a good look down on all the other vehicles ;-)

Our first host was Eric Valentine from Barefoot Recording. After an ample test of the alpha compressor his comments were the following: "It really helps to get in definition. The Release really feels invisible, and that's where lots of other compressors fail."

And just because it is so beautiful, here comes a small part of Eric's incredible collection of vintage guitars and basses. This really is a source of delight for any lover of classic electric instruments, and the photo doesn't even show the complete picture.

Alan Yoshida from Ocean Way hates patchbays, so he hooked up the alpha compressor directly to his console. The result: "I am more than impressed. Damn! This thing can pass signals like a motherfucker. Especially the amplifiers are amazing. You boys did excellent!"

At our next appointment in Stephen Marcussen's studio we could only take photos of the outside. Was this sign just a coincidence? Anyway, Stephen had some very definitive comments: "Listen - it's an impressive device. It really sounds excellent!"

At the end of our tour we took the plane to New York and visited Phillip Sztenderowicz at Sterling Sound and Andy VanDette at Masterdisk. The picture shows Ruben demonstrating the alpha compressor in mastering action - Andy is obviously impressed.

After the final appointments with Jennifer Munson (DB Plus Studios) as well as Angela Piva and Roey Shamir (INFX Productions) we finally found some time to enjoy New York night life and get a little rest from the strains of the 10 days tour. But just when we arrived at Times Square, behold... Definitely time to fly home again!

Finally, a special after-hours 'Danke schön!' to our good friend Larry Hammell of Deep Wave Productions for taking such good care of us Friday night - even if we didn't know the rules, you made us feel right at home. And no harm done (except for Gil twisting his ankle...)